"I gave up on the hairspray. Thank God grunge came along, nowyou don't have to use hairspray anymore. You don't even have towash your hair." Jennifer Batten

OBSCURITY UNVEILED - or - RELEASING FROM A LAYER OF DUST SOMETHING PROBABLY BESNIFFLED BY RATS AND, RATHER LIKELY, MOTH-BENIBBLED by Richard Karsmakers

Back in 1972, Deep Purple did some really classic things. Theyreleased "Machinehead", for starters, which is arguebly the besthard rock album of all times. It contained such fineties as"Highway Star", "Space Truckin'" and the most familiar hard rockanthem ever written, "Smoke on the Water". However, 1972 did notjust see the release of "Machinehead". It also saw the bandtouring Japan and the release of a double live album withouttakes from those shows. Originally due for release only inJapan, it was what I think all hard rock fans should agree uponas the very best live album ever to see the light of day, "Madein Japan". Deep Purple were certainly one of the very best bands -musically and technically - to walk the earth back in those earlyseventies. Black Sabbath may have been legendary once, but thereason behind them playing so slowly was the fact that, really,they didn't really master their instruments very well. DeepPurple organist Jon Lord had had classical training and guitaristRitchie Blackmore, well, he was the closest thing to thearchetypal guitar hero you had. Blackmore is still theinspiration for a lot of current-day guitarists, most prominentof which I guess is Yngwie J. Malmsteen. So "Made in Japan" brandishes some excellent musicianship,faithfully captured on vinyl by producer Martin Birch (who wenton, later, to produce just about every single Iron Maiden album).Three Japanese shows were taped and the best versions of thesongs were selected by bass player Roger Glover. And what youended up with was 70+ minutes of music on a specially priced"souvenir" type live album that eventually - and thankfully - gotreleased worldwide.

I remember (here we go into muse mode again) when I got in touchwith the album. Let me take you back again to the years that Ispent in a child's home in Breda. I think it was 1980, and duringa certain weekend I stayed over at one of the group leaders. Myparents were very busy with something or other so I couldn't gohome for the weekend. As all other children had gone home, it wasdecided that I could spend the weekend with my favourite groupleader, a guy called Cor. At the time I was deeply - almost obsessively - into Kiss. Notlong after arriving at his home and having gone through hiscollection of "Asterix" albums, we somehow got talking aboutmusic and suddenly he took out this double album. I remember verywell, the fourth side of it was covered entirely with candle waxdue to some incident having happened some time before. "Now this is heavy," he said, and he put the needle on the firsttrack of the first side, the beginning of "Highway Star". I hadnever heard of Deep Purple before, and I got my ears blown off. Ireally liked this stuff! "Highway Star" remained one of myfavourites for a very long time. Ritchie's guitar solo is amazingand baffles me each time when I hear it again, even just now whenI listened to the album again. Any hard rock fan should have "Made in Japan", just like everymore poppy rock fan should have Dire Strait's "Money forNothing", any admirer of good black metal should have Venom's"Black Metal" and any guitar fanatic should have YngwieMalmsteen's "Rising Force" debut album (and everybody should, ofcourse, have a copy of "Reggy Hammond's Organ Greats"!). Thetrack listing consists of "Highway Star", "Child in Time" (withthe finest guitar solo of all version I've ever heard), "Smokeon the Water", "The Mule", "Strange Kind of Woman", "Lazy" and"Space Truckin'". Sound quality is unparalleled and the grooveand vibe are so amazing the album cannot but leave you elated andalive when listening to it.

Some time ago, EMI released "Live in Japan", a triple CDcontaining just about the three complete concerts of which "Madein Japan" was made. It contains a somewhat superior version of"Strange Kind of Woman" and three times "Space Truckin'" (gasp!),unfortunately lacking the "24 Carat Purple" / "Singles A's & B's"version of "Black Night". It's a cheap bargain and quite worthwhile, though I should not hesitate to say that the bass in "Madein Japan" is way groovier. Check out either of these albums,preferably both! Especially "Made in Japan" will enrich youboundlessly.

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